4 ms·

This is a great writeup. I wish more political writing would call out specific names and show specific examples of the shady lobbying industry at work like this

This is a great writeup. I wish more political writing would call out specific names and show specific examples of the shady lobbying industry at work like this. American business culture is so greedy and slimy—with no shame whatsoever these groups push back on what amounts to legislating outright fraud for profit. I’d like to see a similar writeup on the real estate industry as that’s another powerful group actively making our lives miserable for their own profit.

jjoonathan 3y ago
Yeah, but homeowners are a majority of the electorate. Our suffering is their free money. A feature, not a bug.
doctorpangloss 3y ago
The flip side of greedflation is that people keep paying it. Nobody forces you to buy cell service from AT&T. T-Mobile gives you all prices up front. Anyway, T-Mobile is more expensive, so I can’t say that’s a consumer positive. Nobody forces you to buy AppleCare. I’ve probably wasted $3,000 on AppleCare. It’s a phone! I mean, who cares! Nobody forces you to book on United after you discover they cost 20% more than advertised. Nobody forces you to browse flights on Google Flights. Nobody forces you to dine in restaurants in San Francisco, as people in this thread are complaining about. When Tartine started charging $8.00 for a croissant, I just stopped going there. It’s a croissant. Though if you really want to get back at restaurants, drink at home. You talk about American business culture as this big homogenous thing. 60m-70m Americans are employed by bonafide small businesses. The owners are your neighbors, they live in your community. The landlords too! You live there. You’re that community. Nobody forces you to live somewhere with small businesses. This is a stylized and comic comment: If the crazy conspiracy theorists are right, that a GLP-1 inhibitor is going to be a general over-consumption treatment, okay, greedflation is over. It’s an objective fact that like 10-20% of customers of all the consumables and depreciables (I don’t like “durables”) that keeps getting more expensive deliver 80-90% of the profits. We pay prices tuned for people who can’t control themselves, who may have a serious issue with agency. So it goes. It’s a free country. It’s a fantasy that this law is going to make prices go down.
- solatic 3y ago
  > Though if you really want to get back at restaurants, drink at home. This is cutting off your nose to spite your face. If you transition from someone who generally drinks out and doesn't drink at home, to someone who drinks at home to avoid paying to drink out, you find you drink a lot more at home, and therefore ultimately, you don't even end up saving much money. It's better for your health and your wallet to let your local restaurant or bar take its 300% markup on alcohol.
- schmookeeg 3y ago
  Even my beloved Tmobile is going down this anti-consumer path unfortunately, and kicking people off of older plans into some new, more expensive plan of T-mobile's choosing, "unless they opt out". [1] I hate this stuff. I don't want to babysit my assorted vendors to learn when they will next try to "stick it to me" when I least expect it. Modern life is complex enough without wondering who is gonna get me this week with some new unexpected KPI/OKR fluffery. :/ [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/174uelk/megathread_forced_plan_migration_for_older_plans/ https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/174uelk/megathread...
- InSteady 3y ago
  >It’s a fantasy that this law is going to make prices go down. The Nobel prize in 2001 was awarded to 3 economists (including Joseph Stiglitz) who characterized market inefficiencies driven by asymmetric information. The price of a good or service is one of the most fundamental units of information in economic exchange. The idea that the normalization of hidden fees will not cause prices to go up for consumers (and other negative outcomes) is a more than a fantasy, it is at odds with the fundamental nature of economic activity.
Yeul 3y ago
Business owners are like death: necessary but you don't celebrate it.
- Nullabillity 3y ago
  ... are they, though?

jjoonathan 3y ago

Yeah, but homeowners are a majority of the electorate. Our suffering is their free money. A feature, not a bug.

doctorpangloss 3y ago

The flip side of greedflation is that people keep paying it. Nobody forces you to buy cell service from AT&T. T-Mobile gives you all prices up front. Anyway, T-Mobile is more expensive, so I can’t say that’s a consumer positive. Nobody forces you to buy AppleCare. I’ve probably wasted $3,000 on AppleCare. It’s a phone! I mean, who cares! Nobody forces you to book on United after you discover they cost 20% more than advertised. Nobody forces you to browse flights on Google Flights. Nobody forces you to dine in restaurants in San Francisco, as people in this thread are complaining about. When Tartine started charging $8.00 for a croissant, I just stopped going there. It’s a croissant. Though if you really want to get back at restaurants, drink at home. You talk about American business culture as this big homogenous thing. 60m-70m Americans are employed by bonafide small businesses. The owners are your neighbors, they live in your community. The landlords too! You live there. You’re that community. Nobody forces you to live somewhere with small businesses. This is a stylized and comic comment: If the crazy conspiracy theorists are right, that a GLP-1 inhibitor is going to be a general over-consumption treatment, okay, greedflation is over. It’s an objective fact that like 10-20% of customers of all the consumables and depreciables (I don’t like “durables”) that keeps getting more expensive deliver 80-90% of the profits. We pay prices tuned for people who can’t control themselves, who may have a serious issue with agency. So it goes. It’s a free country. It’s a fantasy that this law is going to make prices go down.

solatic 3y ago
> Though if you really want to get back at restaurants, drink at home. This is cutting off your nose to spite your face. If you transition from someone who generally drinks out and doesn't drink at home, to someone who drinks at home to avoid paying to drink out, you find you drink a lot more at home, and therefore ultimately, you don't even end up saving much money. It's better for your health and your wallet to let your local restaurant or bar take its 300% markup on alcohol.
schmookeeg 3y ago
Even my beloved Tmobile is going down this anti-consumer path unfortunately, and kicking people off of older plans into some new, more expensive plan of T-mobile's choosing, "unless they opt out". [1] I hate this stuff. I don't want to babysit my assorted vendors to learn when they will next try to "stick it to me" when I least expect it. Modern life is complex enough without wondering who is gonna get me this week with some new unexpected KPI/OKR fluffery. :/ [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/174uelk/megathread_forced_plan_migration_for_older_plans/ https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/174uelk/megathread...
InSteady 3y ago
>It’s a fantasy that this law is going to make prices go down. The Nobel prize in 2001 was awarded to 3 economists (including Joseph Stiglitz) who characterized market inefficiencies driven by asymmetric information. The price of a good or service is one of the most fundamental units of information in economic exchange. The idea that the normalization of hidden fees will not cause prices to go up for consumers (and other negative outcomes) is a more than a fantasy, it is at odds with the fundamental nature of economic activity.

Yeul 3y ago

Business owners are like death: necessary but you don't celebrate it.

Nullabillity 3y ago
... are they, though?